


It's the Nature of My Game

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-24
Updated: 2007-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You have skilled hands"</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's the Nature of My Game

**Author's Note:**

> Several weeks after 3x07. Title is from The Rolling Stones. Thank you to [](http://musesfool.livejournal.com/profile)[**musesfool**](http://musesfool.livejournal.com/) for the terrific beta.

Dean tosses a roll of cash onto the table with a thump. "That represents about four nights of hustling pool," he says.

She can't describe his tone as anything else but surly. It's almost endearing; he's practically _pouting_. Bela clicks her tongue against her teeth. "You poor thing." She snatches up the money, snaps the rubber band and flips through the bills, inhaling the familiar whiff of paper and ink. "Well. It all seems to be here."

He folds his arms, puts on a wounded expression that doesn't suit him at all. "Of course it's all there."

"Oh, please." She tucks the cash into the pocket of her wool coat, the river nearby smelling of a mix of industry and ocean. "Don't act all affronted. You're a con artist too. I wouldn't put it past you to have padded the cash with Monopoly money."

He lets out a short, bark of a laugh that comes from deep in his throat. "Sweetheart, if I were going to bilk you, I'd use something a lot better than Monopoly money."

The tightly-wrapped table umbrellas rattle a bit in the stinging wind, and from the nearby marina comes the sharp sound of metal tapping against metal, water slapping against the hulls of sailboats. Dean's gaze flickers to the shadows, then back to her. It could be his hunter ways, or it could be something else. The riverfront cafe, boarded up for the season, offers enough hiding places. She looks too, a quick assessment of her own. Maybe Dean lied, maybe Sam's lurking around somewhere, as backup to some plan of Dean's, instead of Sam being at the house trying to keep an angry 19th century spirit from murdering anyone else.

"I'll say good night then," she says, and smiles, not expecting in the least that he'll let her walk away. This is only the next move in a familiar series of steps, something they seem to do whenever they meet.

Bela's attached to living and she's quite certain Dean could possibly shoot her, so after the thing with Gordon, she'd avoided the Winchesters religiously. But the hunting community is like a big city: sooner or later you run into everyone.

Dean had pulled his gun on her in Arizona, pressed the metal, still warm from shooting the chupacabra, to the side of her head. She'd wondered if he'd noticed the way the pulse in her neck had jumped.

Gordon had been batshit crazy, but staring down the barrel of his gun hadn't been much of a problem. She knows how to work someone like Gordon. Dean is too practical, too hard, too sane. She can't use his burning mission against him -- and there is a mission, eating away at him, something beyond playing at being a hero.

"Hey, hey," he says, voice sharp as the snap of sail in an angry wind.

She stops and lets out a little sigh. "Oh, that's right, we had a deal, didn't we?" Bela pulls out the old pendant, wrapped in tissue paper in a small velvet drawstring bag. It's not worth much, maybe five grand on the antiques circuit, but she's never been one to give up the chance to earn extra money. Of course, the Winchesters want to melt the trinket down to destroy the pissy spirit.

Bela dangles the bag from two fingers as Dean holds out his hand. She steps in close to him, fast before he remembers that he doesn't want to do this with her. Or rather, that he doesn't _want_ to want to; she's betting on the latter.

She drops the velvet bag into his palm and he slips the bag into the pocket of his jacket -- not the leather one, not when it's snowed recently and the air's too damp, but a worn dark canvas one with too many pockets. She pushes her body against his, grabs his chin, and kisses him, her heart racing almost as fast as it had in Arizona.

After a moment of coiled resistance, muscles tense, he kisses her back, hard enough that her neck starts to ache. He's blindly hungry. This has something to do with that mission she can't figure out, because she knows he really doesn't like her, not even a little. But his body seems to well enough, seems to be completely on board with her plan even if he isn't. His fingers clench around her shoulders, digging in, not quite but almost rough enough that she might have bruises later.

Then his hands slide down her arms, like he's trying to learn the shape of her as well as hold her where he wants her to be. Her coat's somehow come unbuttoned. His mouth travels down to her neck, down to the V where her blouse is open. She shivers when his tongue darts out to lick at the hollow between her breasts. Her hands, his hands, there are hands roving, over cloth, under cloth, finding openings and ways in and his skin is hot against her palms in the cold night.

When she reaches into his pocket and withdraws the velvet bag, the rhythm of what he's doing with his mouth or his hands doesn't falter, and she keeps her other hand busy to ensure that he's well distracted.

When the velvet bag is secured, her hand moves up again. She finds where he's hiding his gun, her fingers skirting over the weapon. For a moment she thinks of lifting it off him, as a safety precaution, but it's too heavy to hide easily; he'd notice the change of weight. Her hands keep moving up, and then her fingertips brush against the short fine hairs at the base of his neck, stroking, lingering there. Her mouth finds the sandpaper line of his chin. She grabs his wrist, guides his hand to her breast. Only then do her fingers start working at the knot.

The amulet is priceless, probably worth more than Gordon's mojo bag, if it were possible to compare the worth of priceless objects. Everything has a price to a buyer. The knot comes free as Dean's fingers slide down over her belly, slipping under the front waistband of her jeans. Her abdominal muscles twitch.

Bela slips the pendant into her back pocket and by the pleased sound Dean makes deep in his throat, she's almost one hundred percent certain he hasn't noticed yet.

His other hand is, wait, she's lost track, oh _god_ , wait, wait, this --

It's not her virtue she's worried about, of course. She's used her body before to get what she wants, but only if it looks like a fun ride anyway. What's causing her concern is the way the blood is rushing in her ears, the way his mouth feels as it curves in a smirk against her skin. It's that the bastard is convinced that if he touches her there, like that, she might come apart like a cube of raw sugar melting in hot tea.

"All right, tiger," she says, and pulls his hands roughly off, steps away. "That's enough." She tugs on her blouse, pulling it back into place. "You have skilled hands," she says calmly.

"So I've been told." He's not smirking anymore, which makes her uneasy. Dean just stands there, his eyes on her.

"What?" she says, each syllable crisp, the way she'd learned, hours of tedious coaching. "I do have other places to be, you know. Are we done here?"

"Yeah." He nods, lips tucked in like he's trying not to laugh at her. "We're done. Have a nice evening, Bela." He lifts his hand in a mock-wave as he walks off.

She makes a face at his retreating back, then tugs her coat more tightly around her and reaches for her cell phone. She dials the buyer's number, reaching into her other pocket to touch the velvet bag and the cord of the amulet as she does so.

Both of them are gone.

Bela snaps her cell phone shut before it can connect.

She leans against one of the metal tables, crosses her ankles, and pulls the set of keys from her jeans pocket. They jangle hollowly.

He won't be back. His brother probably has a second set, and they'll have the locks changed immediately. The gesture lacks leverage, she admits; in her defense, she'd thought she was already holding all the cards. She lifted the keys because she could, the same way she had the Impala towed in Massachusetts, a message: _don't screw with me._

There's a footstep a few yards away.

"Hi," he says, his voice quietly bitter as unsweetened coffee. "Can I have my keys back, bitch?"

She throws them at him. He waits for the last possible millisecond before his hand snaps up, a swift blur, to catch them.

Her voice is smooth when she says cheerily, "Go to hell, Dean."

The side of his mouth quirks in a half smile that's nothing like a smirk, and she can taste it again, the thing burning inside of him.

Then he turns and walks away, the shadows swallowing him whole.

~end  



End file.
